Woodside, British, Modern Restaurant Guide

“It’s always a pleasure” to visit this “beautiful rural pub-restaurant”, a 15th-century village inn where Martyn & Jayne Lee celebrate 20 years in charge this year. It’s a “very consistent” operation, with an “excellent choice of well cooked food”.

“All food pubs should be like this!” – according to fans of this “perfect pit stop” on the outskirts of town. “You can’t fault the intent or enthusiasm of the service and the food, if unadventurous, is very decent”.

This “pleasant old thatched building – hardly a pub, mostly a restaurant”, reopened in autumn 2023 after a refurb and under new ownership – “and the standards have not dropped”. “It’s a nice place (handy for the A1) and the food is pretty good, as is the service”, so it remains “a go-to local restaurant” for many in the area.

“Stunning tasting menus” prepared by chef Steven Barringer provided a couple of reporters’ best meal of the year at this “intimate dining room” – a high-ceilinged, midnight-blue room on a road into the town. It’s sign bills it as a ‘Relaxed Fine Dining Restaurant for Everyone’, inviting passers-by to ‘Come in and enjoy our tasting menus’: but you’d have to have a little time on your hands, with the options being either five or seven courses, starting at £70 per person for the former.